Maledicte (42 page)

Livia, after another averted glance, busied herself lighting the rest of the gas lamps, as silent as she never had been in the town house. The small flames caught and flared under her shaking hands, illuminating wet streaks on her face. Throughout her task, she twisted her head to avoid meeting Gilly’s eyes.

“When you’re done, Livia, you may go. Unless I am mistaken, you have no desire to watch me at my play.”

Livia shook her head, so mute that Gilly imagined atrocities—that Mirabile had torn out Livia’s tongue, or bespelled her to a future as a slave.

“Come back for your coins in the morning,” Mirabile said. “I’ll need you to do the washing up, after. But don’t return too early. I intend to be about this business until the late hours.”

Livia flinched; her eyes met Gilly’s for a brief, scalded moment, then blurred and ran with tears. She left with a deliberate pace, as if she wanted to run, but controlled herself.

Not enough fear, Gilly thought, and Mirabile would kill her. Too much fear and the result would be the same. Like a predator, Mirabile would hunt the fleeing creature out of instinct. Weakness spilled through him, and he slumped, unable to fall while her potions and will held him upright.

“She’ll go for coin tonight. Go for Maledicte,” Gilly said. “Greedy little girl.” Each word was an effort to push out through his stiff tongue and lips.

“I do hope so,” Mirabile said. “I doubted her for a moment there—thought I might have to send a messenger less trustworthy, or one that Maledicte might kill on sight, and then where would I be? Without my audience.”

“Maledicte’s in Stones,” Gilly said, finding a sudden perverse pleasure in the fact that had troubled him so greatly earlier.

“Was in Stones,” she said. “You used to be better at keeping abreast of the gossip, Gilly. The rooks have all moved again. They follow him, you know.” She drew her hands along his flanks, trailed inward; his muscles jumped and flinched at her touch and she smiled. “They nested at Stones while he was there, and now his little birds have flown to the Grand Hotel. They darkened the sky like a whirlwind. All that power at his will, and he refuses to reach out and grasp it. He could control them, their eyes, their secrets, would he only admit complete fealty to Ani.

“But no matter,” she said, “That he fails to reach his power is only of assistance to me. But think of it, Gilly, what a sight it would make, Maledicte in the ballroom with the rooks wheeling about him, calling and excreting over all the nobles.” She grinned; were it not for the mad eyes, Gilly could have enjoyed the mischief in her face.

“A pity it will never happen,” she said, laughing, and wrapped her hands firmly around his genitals.

He tried to force her hands off him, but she squeezed and his breath went short with unwilled pleasure. Her nails sliced into the tender flesh and he cried out, the pain lancing over his body, then settling back into steady throbbing.

“Gilly,” she said. “Take up my skirts.”

Chary of her grip, her touch, he knelt, breathing more easily as her hand slid away to allow his descent. He folded her draggled skirts up about her waist. Under the finery, where the noblewomen wore their slips and petticoats, their lawn chemises, where even the poorest maids wore pantaloons, she was bare. Just above her sex, above the flame of hair, feathers had burst from her skin, small and black. At first he thought she had decorated herself as an honor to Ani, but when she urged his hands to her skin, he knew it was the inverse, that Ani was decorating her.

“My bodice,” she said. He reached behind her; she knelt before him, pressed her hips to his as if she was nothing but an eager lover. Her bodice fell loose in his hands; she shrugged it from her shoulders, baring more white flesh, patterned with tiny black feathers so small they seemed like scales. He gasped, his hands flying away. She grabbed them, pressed them to her breasts, sank herself onto him. He groaned.

“You love me, Gilly.”

“Yes,” he said, her words in his mouth. His own words drowned as she rocked herself over him.

In his head, he began whispering prayers though the only god present was Ani. Her teeth bit into the welts left by the barnacles on the pier, raised blood again; her nails dug into the deep bruises left by Janus’s fists, scribed the edges of his raw wrists. She tongued the wound on his head, lapping the blood until it stopped, then biting until it bled again. His prayers dissolved into one internal plea. Maledicte.

M
ALEDICTE PACED THE ROOM,
agitated without cause. He had the sky now, through the high windows, and yet…the sword throbbed in his hands, seeking blood.

A tap on the door sent him spinning around, sword bared.

“Sir, I’ve brought your dinner.” The girl’s voice, though tight with tension, was familiar.

Maledicte drew open the door; the guards stepped back, out of reach of his sword, too cautious to let him use the maid as a distraction. One guard spoke. “Are you certain you want to go in with him, miss?”

“He’s my master,” she said. “I brought the food from his own table, what’s left of it, and he’ll be hungry.”

The other guard shrugged. “It’s your neck.”

“May I go in?” Livia asked. “You’ve already looked me over, peered in the bowls. You know I have nothing to aid him.” She shifted the heavy tray on her hip, and the guard nodded her in, latched the door behind her.

Maledicte watched her red hair slide over the shoulders of her damp cloak like a scarf. He raised the sword and brought it winging to her nape, halting it at the very last.

She gave a stifled shriek, too frightened to move. Then the long braided tail of her hair slithered to the floor, cut. He picked it up. “Get undressed,” he said. “And don’t think of crying out. I’ve no need to hurt you but I must find Gilly.”

Her skin paled white as marble; her mouth worked, soundless. Maledicte read the word on her lips. “Gilly?”

Behind his cold rage, the hunger, something as warm as baked bread rose, soothing his temper, then settled back into rage. Anything Livia knew, with her eyes like a dead woman’s, was not going to please him.

Livia licked dry lips.

“If you don’t find your voice, I’ll hunt it with my sword,” Maledicte said.

“You have to help him. Mirabile will kill him.”

Maledicte put his hands around her neck, found a vicious satisfaction in making her flinch, and undid the knotted strings of her cloak. “Get undressed,” he said again.

“They’ll never believe it—” she said, fumbling her bodice off, her skirts.

“They don’t have to for more than a moment. It’s vision driven by expectation, but never mind all that,” he said, tugging her skirt up over his breeches, watching her blink astonishment when the buttons closed around him. “Your bodice,” he said. “Your cloak.”

“If you’re taking my cloak, I don’t see why you need—”

“Because a cloak over breeches looks like a cloak over breeches, and a skirt is an entirely different thing,” he said. “As glad as I am you found your voice, now I want you to be silent again.”

She stood stripped to her chemise, shivering in the chill room.

“My dressing gown,” Maledicte said, motioning to the bed and the heavy drape of quilted fabric lying across the bottom. “Put it on.”

Pulling it off the bed, she pulled it on, her hands shaking as she tightened the tie around her waist. He bit back the rage swelling in him, and, unwilling to risk the guard’s overhearing, said with hushed impatience, “For gods’ sake, don’t show off your narrow waist. Have you no sense at all? Tie it around your hips. Turn around. Stand in the window.”

She did, visibly reluctant to turn her back to him. Maledicte snarled. Her hair, rough cut by his sword, stood out like flame in the dark glass. He looked at the fireplace, long cold, long cleaned, and turned to the oil lamps instead.

“Gilly,” she said again. “You have to go to him.”

“I am endeavoring to do so. Or would you have me call a challenge to the guards in the hall, forcing me to dally in bloodlust until dawn? Gilly would be long dead by the time I fought my way clear.” He pinched out the wick, pulled off the glass, ran his hands over the residue inside; his fingers came away streaked black. He scrubbed his hands into her hair, pushing her against the window. She grabbed the frame with shaking hands, clung to it as if she feared he would push her through it and onto the cobbles below.

He blew out another lamp, dimming the room, rubbed the lampblack into her hair again, and stepped back to look at her. “Unconvincing. Stand up straight,” he said. “Like you’re so frightened your spine is an icicle.” She stiffened, her hands on the window frame whitening.

“Better,” he said. “A few lessons in comportment and you might be able to pass as a lady. Or a lord.” One more thing was needed, one last piece to anchor belief, even fleetingly. The fireplace would aid him after all. He drew out the poker from its rack with a rasp that made her shudder. “Take this,” he said.

She clutched it.

“Like a sword, Livia, like a sword.”

He threw the food into the fireplace, tucked the loose braid of her severed hair into the neck of the cloak, and drew the hood around his face, leaving only the flare of redness hanging out, the rustle of lace and skirt.

Maledicte took the sword up by its blade, held it below the hilt, angled it so it lay under his forearm and extended only a foot past his fist. Picking up the dinner tray, he laid it over the visible blade, and then tapped on the door.

The guard opened it warily, gaze slipping over the tray, the hair, the cloak, and lit on the figure shadowed beyond. Maledicte stepped up to him, and slid the sword through his throat.

These guards were not the simple Particulars who had come with Echo to arrest him; the other guard had stayed out of easy reach, and even now turned to shout for aid. Maledicte threw the tray, caught him in the throat, and while he was reeling from that, brought the sword up and made him as mute as his thrashing friend.

“Livia,” Maledicte said. “Come.”

“I thought I was to stay,” she said, but hustled toward him anyway. “I thought you were going to sneak out, and leave me behind so they wouldn’t notice.”

“They’ll notice the bodies in the hall. And even had I time to dispose of them, I do not have time to scrub the carpet clean. When you came in, where were the main force of the guards? And where were the balconies? I foresee a climb in our future.”

“The front,” she said. “Both at the front of the hotel.”

“They would be together, of course. Still, no help for it. Let’s find a front-facing room,” Maledicte said. Despite the fear for Gilly, Maledicte almost enjoyed having a goal at hand with the promise of bloodshed at the end of it. For this moment, Ani and he moved in rare concert.

He darted down the corridor, pulling at the skirts and cloak, trying to keep them from tangling his legs in a hindering embrace. Behind him, Livia trailed, and he reached his hand back and tugged her alongside him. “Hurry, Livia.”

They turned a corner, startling a drunkard returning to his room. “Are you lovely girls come to warm my bed?”

“Of course we have,” Maledicte whispered. “A noble with a room with a view. You gladden my heart.” He pushed past the man as he fumbled to close the door, threw open the glass-paned windows.

“Perfect,” he said. He tucked the sword into Livia’s skirt, and looked down. “Livia, look, climbing roses, how lovely.” He swung his leg over, settled his boots onto the thickest branch. “Livia.”

She dodged away from the drunk, pushed him back outside the room, and slammed the door. Maledicte began his descent, wincing at the sharp needle kiss of the thorns.

Livia’s face peered down at him. “Oh, I can’t.”

Maledicte called up in a hoarse whisper. “You’ll be hanged for helping me, if you don’t come down—”

Ashen, she clambered over the balcony rail, tearing the dressing gown on its wrought-iron finials, and reached her toes out for a foothold. She let out a little shriek as her weight settled.

“Hush,” Maledicte said. Above, he could hear the drunkard coming to at least a fraction of his senses, pounding on the door. The second story was going to be full of people soon and there were two dead guards waiting to be found. Maledicte looked down; the ground, dark with distance, seemed to recede. A droplet, warmer than rain, dripped onto his cheek, rolled toward his mouth. Salt and iron. Blood. He licked it up, looked up. Livia’s soft slippers were wet with blood.

Maledicte settled his hand on a wickedly large thorn, watched the blood well up and stop when he removed it, the pain vanishing. “After all,” he murmured, “we can’t hold a sword with damaged hands.”

He dropped the last few feet, skidded on a rounded cobble, and fell hard, wrenching his ankle. “Ani,” he said. “We can’t fight with a bad limb.” The soreness retreated, the swelling receded, and he stood.

“Drop, Livia,” he said and she was either so exhausted or so frightened that her body obeyed without hesitation. He steadied her as she rocked on sore feet, muffled her cries in the cloak. “Shh.”

Lights flared on the second story, bobbed from window to window; faintly he could hear a woman screeching.

“Rot them all,” Maledicte said. “Does no one sleep anight anymore?”

He dragged Livia forward. “Tell me where he is.” She was too slow to keep up with him, too fragile to fight.

“Her temple. Sir, it’s my fault, all my fault,” she moaned. “I told her—told her you loved Gilly. If he dies—I never meant—”

Behind them, the hotel doors were flung wide, disgorging the Kingsguard. Shouts rang through the night, including the one Maledicte had been dreading. “There they are! By the wall!”

Maledicte reached out, intending to shove Livia toward the shadows and dubious safety, but Ani had other thoughts. His hands pulled her before him, into the torchlight; his rumpled dressing gown, the short sooty hair—the guards fired at once. The shot sent her reeling backward, falling into the cobbles. Maledicte turned and ran, hands clenching at his side, shivering, refusing to feel guilt, not while Gilly needed him.

“Her temple,” he muttered, thinking of the elaborate and twisted length of Sybarite Street between him and the ruined Relict temple, the only temple to Ani he knew. He had no doubt at all that Mirabile had made her quarters there where he had begun his own quest.